We have here a pretty standard thriller plot: a serial killer is targeting young blonde women, the town gets in an uproar, the mayor wants to cash in on the killings politically, and as a result David is arrested despite a total lack of actual evidence against him. A lynch mob forms to bring David to mob justice, and in the meantime he has to stop the real killer. The killer's identity isn't hard to guess, either. But none of that prevents this from being a thrilling and surprisingly somber episode.
The episode sets the mood right off the bat with a night scene in which the heavy breathing killer leaves behind a victim with a white deathmask. A sense of fear is built throughout the episode, but the two standout scenes are unquestionably the ones in which policeman Frank Rhodes interrogates Banner. Gerald McRaney, who has played a series of minor villains on The Incredible Hulk, departs the series on a high note and his biggest role as Rhodes. Bixby does a fine job in these moody, theatrically-influenced scenes, but the focus is clearly on McRaney, who takes Rhodes into full confessional mode with riveting conviction.
The themes also reflect on the Hulk, as the killer unconsciously compares his situation with Banner's: having something terrible inside yourself that you cannot control. It puts David's problem in a disturbing light, and I found myself thinking anew about what it must be like to come out of a blackout and not know what you did during it until you read it in the newspaper.
The ending is appropriately dark. We aren't told that there's no hope for the tormented killer, but nor are we assured that he'll be perfectly fine after two months of psychiatric treatment. He may be cured one day, but the blood on his hands can never be erased.